


The Price Of Forgiveness

by iamisaac



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 04:43:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5571579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamisaac/pseuds/iamisaac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus is finding it hard to forgive Sirius for setting up Snape to meet his as a werewolf in the Shrieking Shack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Price Of Forgiveness

“I know he’s an arse, Moony, but can’t you forgive him?” James urged.

Remus’s expression was bleak. “No. I’m sorry. I can’t.”

“He didn’t mean –“

“He didn’t mean to try and make me kill someone, Prongs? Is that what he didn’t mean?” Remus demanded. He sighed. This wasn’t James’s fault, after all. Both Snape and Remus probably owed their lives to James. “I know he’s your best friend, and I understand that you and Peter will stick to him,” he said. “But I can’t forget it. Don’t worry. I won’t get in the way and make things difficult. You can just be a three rather than a four.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” said James briefly. “We’re not going to start ignoring you now. It’s just…” He trailed off, looking at Remus appealingly.

“No.”

If there was one thing that was for certain, it was that Remus was not going to forgive Sirius Black. Not now, not tomorrow, not any time.

*

Hogsmeade weekend. Remus let the other Marauders set off together, telling Peter that he intended to spend some time in the library, “get a bit of work done in peace.” It was a lie, of course, but Remus wasn’t going to spend him time hanging onto them and making life awkward. James and Sirius had been best friends almost from the beginning, and Remus wasn’t going to mess that up. He climbed up the stairs to the dormitory, intending to get a book out to read – and then stopped, suddenly.

Sirius wasn’t in Hogsmeade after all. Sirius was kneeling by his bed. Sirius, Remus corrected himself silently, was kneeling _handcuffed_ to Remus’s bed.

“What the…” He broke off.

Sirius looked up. “Please talk to me, Moony. Please?”

Remus, taking a long, deep breath, sat down on the side of his four-poster. “What the hell is going on?” he asked, coldly furious.

“I just…” Sirius hesitated. “James has the key,” he said at last. “And he’s in Hogsmeade till seven. The only other way these will come off is if you forgive me. He’s charmed them for that.”

“Then you’ve got a long wait on your hands,” Remus said.

“Moony…” pleaded Sirius. “I’m so sorry. I really am. I never thought that it would cause any problems. I didn’t think Snivellus would actually do something I told him to, for Merlin’s sake! He never usually does. And I never thought…”

“Do you know what the consequences are if a werewolf kills someone?” Remus asked, interrupting him.

Sirius looked away, down at his handcuffed wrists. “I s’pose… the death penalty,” he mumbled.

“You thought I’d die, but still you did it? But no. No.” Remus gave a mirthless smile. “You mean the potion? Sleep everlasting? The one they give to murderers instead of sending them to Azkaban sometimes?” Sirius looked up at him, frowning. “That’s for humans,” Remus said, accenting the last word. “Do you want to know what they do to werewolves, Sirius?”

Sirius made a noise which might have been yes or no. Remus bent down, and pulled his trunk out from under the bed, opening it and finding a book.

“They chain you up,” Remus said slowly. “And then they bring you to the execution room, and push you onto your knees.” He flicked through the pages of the book to a certain full page moving picture, sliding it in front of Sirius and continuing to speak as Sirius looked at what was in front of him. “One executioner forces your head back, holds it there - and another slits your throat, like a stuck pig. Like an animal. And as you bleed to death, you have the pleasure of the audience. People can pay to come and watch a werewolf put down, you know. They can pay to see this creature shackled, forced to the ground, and slit open – just for their amusement. After all, it’s not human. It’s just a beast.”

Sirius’s eyes were fixed on the page in front of him, showing precisely what Remus was describing. He was deathly white, and for once in his life, he was silent. Remus sat back down on the bed and looked at his erstwhile friend. Finally, Sirius spoke.

“I… didn’t know.” His voice was creaky and uncertain. He raised his eyes to meet Remus’s for a second, and then dropped them again. “I’ll see Dumbledore. Get myself expelled.” He was speaking fast now, as if trying to get the words out before he could stop himself. “Dunno where I’ll go – don’t expect James’s family will want me in the circumstances, but that doesn’t matter. Moony… Remus, I swear, I’ll be out of here. You won’t have to see me any more. You won’t have to do… anything. I promise. You won’t have to see me.” His eyes caught the picture in front of him again, and Remus saw a tremor run through him. “I don’t know why they haven’t expelled me already,” he said softly. “I would’ve done.”

“I asked them not to,” Remus said steadily.

Sirius’s head jerked up as if he’d been shot, and he stared at Remus for a second. Then, to Remus’s shock, he sunk his head onto the edge of the bed, shoulders shaking with sobs. In over five years, Remus had never seen Sirius cry, not even when his beloved little brother had snubbed him outright at Hogwarts after Sirius ran away from home. Something in Remus changed in that moment: Sirius’s repentance mended something which had broken when Sirius had betrayed him. He leaned forward; and Sirius, realising what he was about to do, cried:

“No, don’t. Don’t – please, Moony. Don’t.”

Remus brushed his fingertips lightly over the handcuffs, and they fell away from Sirius’s wrists. Sirius himself fell to the floor in front of his friend, curled up almost foetally, and crying.

“Please don’t – you can’t – I can’t… please.”

“Please what?”

Sirius looked up, his face swollen and puffy. “Don’t forgive me. Oh god, don’t.” He was trying to stifle the sobs, but the tears still ran down his cheeks. “God, I don’t deserve even to be this close to you, Moony.” Remus put a hand on his shoulder, but Sirius pulled away. “How can you bear to be near me?” he whispered.

“Don’t,” said Remus quietly.

“I could’ve killed you.”

“You didn’t.”

“No thanks to me.” Sirius, still on all fours, put his head down against the dormitory floor. “I don’t deserve this. God. I can’t even – I’m not fit to be in the same room as you. Why didn’t you tell them to throw me out, like I deserved?”

“Sirius…” Remus said.

“I’m so sorry. So sorry. Fuck, like that’s good enough. Like I can just say I’m sorry and everything’s fine.” 

Remus slid onto his knees on the floor next to him. “Don’t do this,” he said, trying to pull Sirius up. “Please.”

Sirius looked up at him, an expression of such desolation and self-hatred on his face that Remus was shocked. “What can I do to make it up? Why don’t you want me expelled, Moony? I would.”

“Because,” Remus said, “you’re my friend.”

Sirius laughed bitterly. “With friends like me…”

“You know now. You wouldn’t do something like this again.”

“Of course I bloody wouldn’t,” Sirius snapped. “Only a complete bastard would’ve done it in the first place.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just wish there was something I could do to make it up to you.”

“Well, you can stop self-flagellating, for a start,” Remus said, trying for a brisker tone. He sat back against the bed and looked at his friend. “You look a right mess.”

Sirius sat up. He was still looking at Remus as if waiting for the other boy to hit him. He looked, Remus thought, like a whipped puppy: perhaps his animagus form wasn’t so strange after all. 

“Can you stop looking at me like I’m about to bite you, do you reckon?” Remus asked. “The last thing I need is another werewolf in the dorm, so you’re safe from that, at any rate.”

Sirius rubbed his sleeve across his face. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

“And if you say that one more time, I’ll give you something to be sorry about,” Remus retorted. “Stop it, it’s quite unnatural.”

“I’m -” Sirius bit the word off, and rubbed his face again. “God, I feel like hell.”

“You look like hell.”

Sirius gave a half-smile. “Thanks.”

Remus stood up, and then bent down to take Sirius’s hand and drag him up too. He felt the moment Sirius’s fingers twitched in his, as if it was painful to have Remus touch him. However, he let the other boy pull him to his feet.

“I’m such a tosser, Moony. God, I’m so -”

“Sorry,” Remus finished for him. “You might have mentioned that, once or twice.”

“I’ve got no idea why you’re being so bloody nice to me.”

“To get James off my back,” Remus retorted. 

Sirius glanced at him. “He’s told me what he thinks of me,” he admitted. 

“Go and wash your face,” was all Remus vouchsafed. “And hurry up. If we’re quick about it, we could meet them in the Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer. James and Peter, I mean.”

Sirius nodded. But at the dormitory door, he turned. “Thanks,” he said briefly. “I won’t forget it.”

“No,” said Remus, his voice suddenly gentle, smiling at him. “I don’t think you will.”


End file.
